


Fever

by JulianGreystoke



Category: The Young Elites Series - Marie Lu, young elites
Genre: Character Study, Hatered, Madness, Oneshot, Self Harm, Self Loathing, Short, The Fever, Young, attempted suicide, boy - Freeform, elite, malfetto, mention of Enzo, powers, quick fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 16:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6665602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulianGreystoke/pseuds/JulianGreystoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The illness takes the mothers and fathers.  It scorches the lungs, and rips the flesh to leave the children scarred.</p><p>Teren has seen his prince and friend fall prey to the fever, and awaken as something else.  An abomination who can scorch anything he touches.  But Teren's bout with the strange illness does not leave him unscathed either.  He finds that he too has become something horrible and he may never come to terms with it.</p><p>The story of Teren discovering his 'powers' and dealing with what he has become after the fever.</p><p>Oneshot character study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fever

Fever

The illness takes the mothers and fathers. It scorches the lungs, and rips the flesh to leave the children scarred.

Silver eyes.

All he can see are silver eyes. The nurses recoil when they look at him and he grapples for a mirror to see. His face, unmarred, his chest, his arms and legs are whole. The fever has left him intact, but where his eyes should be twin pools of molten grey stare back. His belly twists, his insides churn. He saw what became of the prince. His prince. Enzo had been felled by this same affliction and been torn by fire from the capitol and into exile.

Terren sits on the end of the infirmary bed, long blond hair falling over his shoulder as he stares and stares into the mirror that the frightened women gave him. Now he sees nothing. The man he would have become is gone. He'd been hopeful, determined, destined. Now this.

He shrugs off the blankets and stands naked, his pale skin flawless as he searches it for any other sign. Maybe his eyes lie. Maybe he will be well after all. The fever he had suffered was not that fever. His blood is not turned to poison. He can still serve the royal family. He turns to the women and they stare back, cowering away. He is already tall, well muscled and renowned for his ability throughout the palace. He was to be the prince's second. The strong right hand of the king one day. Now there was no crown prince, only a princess who was still as perfect and whole as Teren could never be again.

“I'm not marked,” he tells the women. His voice is still sore and raspy from fever. “I am not marked!” He shouts, turning so they are forced to see all of his body. He holds up his arms so they can witness every part of him, Then he fixes them with his stare, like the steel of a blade. “I am unmarked, do you understand? I am NOT one of them.” He spits the words to expel them like venom.

“Y-yes ser,” one of the women squeaks. Her eyes are brown. Ordinary. Wide with fear.

Teren hunts around for some clothes and finds a small chest with his things beside his little sickbed. They even brought him his sword. He dresses in the efficient, practiced way of a man-at-arms. No fuss, no frills, only duty. “Tell anyone who asks that I have recovered from the fever and I am well.” Teren instructs, his voice level now. The tone of a good commander. Even, but instructive. “I will return to my duty as soon as it is allowed.”

The women nod frantically and flee the room. Teren collects his things and collects himself. What would a power feel like? Would he know if he had one? He had heard Enzo screaming in the night. Had seen the fire that seared from his prince's hands and had known that the boy could never be king. Enzo's transformation had been the first step to crumble away from Teren's appointed path, but the man-at-arms would not be deterred. Already he had ingratiated himself with the beautiful princess. He could be her body guard. It would not be the same as standing beside a king, but it would do well enough. The princess is intelligent and gorgeous. She liked Teren already.

But now. What is he now? Perhaps he was right. His eyes have changed but nothing else. He was marked but not ruined. Not an abomination. With legs still shaky from fever he steps out into the hall and raises his chin. Any who see him with receive the same dominant glare of defiance. No one will dare to question him or chase him away.  
~~~~~

Practice that day is hard and brutal, and Teren is merciless. If these men are to be his queen's guards then they must prove their metal. Teren is only a boy. Only sixteen, but he bests them again and again. They rain blows upon him with practice blades, but he only feels the sting for a moment before it is gone. These men are weak. The princess watches from above in her special place. Teren knows she is watching him because he his handsome and skilled and worthy of her admiration.

Finally he lets the men go. They nurse bruised limbs and cut lips. Teren wipes sweat from his face and looks up to the princess. He cannot see if she is smiling, but he raises a hand in greeting. Then he too retires to his quarters to nurse his wounds.

Only he has no wounds.

Teren tears at his shirt, yanking it from himself, searching. He should have bruises. He should have cuts. His mind races. He has had tough practice days before this, but this was the hardest. On those other days he did not take so many blows, did not face so many fighters at once. He pulls up a pant leg where one man had struck his knee. Teren remembers the pain, sharp and cruel, but he recalls that he was able to put weight on the leg again, only moments later.

Now Teren sweats for another reason besides exertion. His breathing is rapid and tight. The room tilts around him as he grapples for his dagger, his hand somehow clumsy, though he has made this simple motion a thousand times before. Draw the dagger, strike the foe. Now he is the foe.

Teren stares at the gleaming, curved blade of his dagger. It matches his eyes. Pale and glinting. Deadly. He snarls and drags the dagger fiercely across his forearm. Blood wells and he feels the sting of it. As he watches the wound it closes before his eyes. He wipes at the blood with his knuckle and there is no cut beneath. “No,” he breathes. “No no no no no.”

Again and again he cuts his arms. His legs. He slices his cheek and watches in a mirror as it heals itself, perfect as if it had never been. He gouges deep into his chest and it is all he can do not to cry out. The pain lasts moments and fades. He stands, staring at his mirror, his bare chest made whole with only the faintest of pale scars. He is crying and has not realized it. His face his running with tears and drying blood. His breaths, when they come, are jerking gasps that shudder his whole frame. Words fill his mind. Words he had heard used to refer to the prince, the would-be ruler of the land.

Abomination. Cursed. Evil. Unworthy.

If these words could be said of the beloved Enzo, what would people say of Teren? A boy from no where who has nothing. No claim to this life save what he has earned for himself.

Teren turns to his small fireplace. There were still embers in the ashes there. He digs into them with his bare hands. He rubs the sparking ashes on his arms. He feels the heat, the burn, and it was gone, the same as with the blades. He bares his teeth, snarling in rage and hatred for himself and what he knows he has become.

Desperately He grabs his dagger again in both ashy hands. He turns the blade so it faces him, the tip cool against his skin. He cannot breath now. Panic has closed its hands around his heart. He feels is muscles tighten and he drives the dagger into his stomach with all his force. This time he does cry out in agony as the blade slides cleanly into his gut. Hot blood bubbles around his hands and falls over his knees. With a jerking motion that rattles a gasp from his lips he drags the dagger sideways, severing muscle and intestines. There is the vague sensation of impact as his body slams to the floor. He feels blood at the back of his throat and smiles. If he cannot live whole, he will not live. He leaves the dagger inside him and lays still. Waiting.

His eyes are closed but he hears the gentle 'clink' of something metal hitting the floor. He opens an eye. The dagger is beside him, blood coating it to its hilt. But that isn't right. He never pulled it free. He had assumed that he no longer felt the pain in his stomach because he was dying, but now he sees, as he looks down at his blood stained belly, there is no wound. Only a white, puckered scar. Tears spring into his eyes again. He cannot live. He cannot die. This is a fresh hell. A fresh fever for him to stew in forever. He will walk in this purgatory like a wraith. He will do what he knows is right. Punish those like him as he cannot punish himself.

He will be Inquisitor. If he kills them all, perhaps then he will finally end.

**Author's Note:**

> How? How did this happen? I should tell you all that I don't even like 'The Young Elites'. I was highly unimpressed. But for some reason I was intrigued by Teren. I wanted to give him more backstory and delve into his mind and potential madness a little bit. So, to warm up for my own personal writing today, I churned out this little abomination. I have no idea.
> 
> Well, whatever this is, I hope someone enjoys it, and maybe there is someone else out there who was intrigued by Teren and disappointed with how little character stuff we got for him.


End file.
